OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maseru | Monday 10.00pm.
SOUTHERN African troops will remain in Lesotho until order is restored in the country, the defence ministers of Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana said in Maseru on Monday.
Speaking at the Lesotho government complex, the ministers maintained that the military intervention in Lesotho last week by troops from South Africa and Botswana was in line with Southern African Development Community agreements that no legitimate government in a member country should be toppled by the military.
South African and Lesotho opposition parties have called for the withdrawal of SADC troops as a first step towards talks to resolve Lesotho’s political crisis.
Monday, 9.00pm:
FIGURES from the Lesotho police and Southern African Development Community force indicates at least 113 people have died in Lesotho in the week since troops from South Africa and Botswana entered the tiny country on a peacekeeping mission.
The Lesotho police counted 47 civilians and 15 injured in fighting between rebel Lesotho Defence Force soldiers and the SADC forces.
The SADC force said counted 58 Lesotho and eight South African soldiers killed, making for a total of 113, not counting 68 bodies collected by Red Cross officials in various other areas of the country.
The final civilian death toll has not yet confirmed by either the Lesotho government or the Red Cross, and many families are believed to have buried their dead without notifying the country’s shaky civil authorities.
No members of the Botswanan army were killed, while the South African army lost eight men.